There’s a lot of art to every step of that process from scouting to coaching the players. None of it is a commodity.
Btw Staley is literally doing what we’ve all been calling for, and he’s of course getting. excoriated in the pundit-o-sphere for it. Now imagine some nerd with zero football background. Not pretty.
You need a real football guy as figurehead and the nerd secretly in his ear, which I assume a lot of (most?) teams have now?
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Here’s the chart that tracks which teams do / don’t go by what the Ben Baldwin 4th down decision bot suggests.
I think it’s really hard if not impossible to be a truly great coach in 2021 if you are on the right side of that graph.
The one counter to that is that I do think some Coaches take into account the opponent more than the Bots do, in ways that make some small sense. Like this punt from Sunday’s KC-PIT game:
https://twitter.com/ben_bot_baldwin/status/1482888694256345088
I dispute they were only 81% to win after that punt.
It’s better to go for it, but KC punting isn’t as awful because they were giving the ball to a helpless, hopeless Quarterback. If Andy Reid’s reasoning is “The only way we can possibly lose is if variance spits in our face”, then the punt is less bad. Baldwin’s math kind of nods at this - it says KC 81% to win after the punt, but 78% to win if they went for it and failed.
If KC was playing a decent team, I’d expect they would go for it there.
Speaking of variance - I’ve been looking at fumbles, and I saw Mahomes has 7 fumbles in his 9 playoff games, but hasn’t lost any of them. QBs as a group lose fumbles at about a 40% rate.
Yeah he’s gotten lucky on those. Several game-winning drives would have ended if one of our linemen doesn’t fall on the ball.
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Does anyone have an opinion on if Ed Oliver is a bust? I thought he was going to be maybe a poor man’s Aaron Donald. He has had 3.5 sacks in the last 4 games, but his career numbers aren’t much - 12 sacks in 3 years with good health. I know Sacks don’t tell the whole story, especially with DTs.
Oliver was good this year but yeah I was surprised his career started slow–they had to triple team that dude in college.
poor man’s donald isn’t what I’d call him though, that’s more like geno atkins, he’s a different player ability than that.
disappointment is fair, bust it’s too early to say that yet another year like this and it’s not so bad, a little better next year and he’s pro bowl
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Anyone know how that never punting Coach did in his first year of college? I think he won his first game but lost next four or so. My tiktok correspondent stopped reporting.
Definitely taking the over on them every game was like 100 points plus.
I think a big black hole in football is human psychology. It’s just different depending on down , distance field position clock and it’s not all equal.
Plus different players are good at different situations and you have to coach that not just analytics it.
Yeah you would have to have a head coach w a pedigree and get in as an assistant head coach. Different sport but you need a Frank Vogel to backstop lebron (lol)
lol sheesh 2-9 and just bailing
I get it he actually took a pay cut to do that and he had just non stop won at that HS but lol
been a rough year for analytics, baltimore’s 2pc attempts at the end all failed, caused the chargers miss the playoffs instead of make them, that guy
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Or Jonah Hill to Brad Pitt.
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That’s him.
But why did they punt 13 times. That is more than once a game. 
they were in so many blowouts just end the thing
I have zero memory of this play.
https://twitter.com/BertEmanuelSr/status/1484344498683473922
Ruled incomplete on the field, and incomplete after booth review. Would have given the Bucs a 3rd and 10 on the 22 yard line, down by 5.
I remember that game pretty well just because I had binked Kurt Warner with one of the very last picks in our fantasy draft that year and reaped the rewards, and was sentimentally rooting for him. Also just remember the weird 11-6 final score (was 5-3 going into 4Q I think). And yeah, terrible rule interpretation that caused that to be ruled incomplete.
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The TD catch by Proehl to put them ahead was pretty sick:
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I don’t remember that game but I definitely remember in the 90s lots of incompletes where the wr had it the whole time but the ball touched the ground. Good rule change.
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Pretty content with the Giants hiring of Joe Schoen.
Not so keen on them interviewing Brian Flores. You’d think they’d get the hint about former Patriots assistants. The Bills OC seems like a solid choice.